Wednesday, December 23, 2009

When I work at the club, there are usually just two servers and a bartender. That's it. There are not a lot of people "on the floor" most of the time and I generally work with the same couple of people each week because of our set schedule. The other server I work with is tall, dark and handsome. Like literally, he is 6' 3", black hair and very good looking. I think he is a model/actor or something and he is really young. For the sake of this blog, let's just say his name is Pretty Baby. I really like Pretty Baby even though I seriously think I am old enough to be his father, which makes a teeny tiny bit of my soul die when I admit that. And when I say a "teeny tiny" bit of my soul I mean most of it. When we work, the room is divided in half for each of our stations. A few days ago, the guests were being seated and Pretty Baby went up to his first table in the back half of the room. The first person in his station was this older gay man who was with his friend and when he saw Pretty Baby, he exclaimed, "Oh boy, we get the handsome waiter." This was probably followed by some drool dripping from the corners of his mouth, his tongue hanging out and him untucking his shirt so it covered the front of his pants. First off, middle aged gay man, I can hear you. The handsome waiter implies that there is only one handsome waiter in the room meaning I am not it. Now I may not be Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Soupy Sales or whoever is considered hot these days, but I ain't no Quasi-fucking-modo. I suddenly felt like The Elephant Man or that guy from that movie Mask. (Funny store: I remember seeing Mask at the movie theater while getting drunk on California Coolers. There's a clue as to how old I am. Quiet dramatic part of the movie and my friend Kim yelled out, "Awww, chin up, Rocky! Why the long face?) Anyhoo, I guess the customer had just delegated me to "the funny one" or worse yet "the other one." Thanks. That's great. Like being at work is not torturous enough, now I have to hear from customers that I am practically an eye sore. Pretty Baby assured me that the man said a handsome waiter and not the handsome waiter. Uh huh. Sure. Fine.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Now I don't drink coffee, so maybe I just don't "get it" but it seems to me that whether you put half and half or skim milk in your coffee, it wouldn't make that big of a difference. Too many times, I have taken coffee to someone and they have a mini stroke when they find out I had the gall to bring them whole milk instead of heavy cream. Or half and half instead of skim milk. The simplest way for these people to avoid this horror of horrors is to just ask for what they want when they ask for their coffee. A simple "with skim milk" will work wonders. It saves me a trip back to the kitchen and it would save the customer from having to contort their face into a ridiculous expression when their brain tries to to wrap itself around the idea of possibly having whole milk. And it's only a tablespoon anyway, right?

I looked up the difference in calories for various dairy products. Based on a tablespoon serving, heavy cream has 52 calories, half and half has 20, whole milk has 9 and skim has 5. Can someone please explain to me why some lady would freak the fuck out on me that I brought her whole milk instead of skim? It's a difference of 4 fucking calories. It's not like I tried to force feed her a Cinnabon cinnamon roll (730 calories) or something. When someone doesn't specify, I will just bring whole milk. I figure that it's sorta middle of the road and won't make that big of a difference. Keep in mind that a lot of times the woman (it's always a woman. Men don't care) who can't handle that tablespoon of whole milk in her coffee, is perfectly fine ordering a three egg omelette with bacon and cheddar but God forbid she has those four extra calories from the whole milk. And here's a little secret about skim milk that surely happens in restaurants around the globe. If I only have whole milk and the customer really really wants skim milk, I will do whatever I can to please that customer. I want them to have their skim milk, I really do. Therefore, after much experimentation, I have learned that one part whole milk to one part tap fucking water produces the finest skim milk known to man in all the land. People don't know the difference anyway. It's like when this asshole asked me for a glass of milk once at the Marriott. He had already gotten way on my nerves, so I served him a glass of half and half. He drank it. All of it. I think when he left I heard him fucking say "moo."

Friday, December 18, 2009

Maybe it's possible that I have a teeny tiny stripe of vindictiveness within my soul, but when a person's credit card is declined I get some small bit of pleasure from it. Sometimes it happens to the most perfect person. I love when it happens to some asswipe who has given me so many problems and thought he was a big shot because he could boss around a waiter. When a guy like that has his card declined, my inner joy shoots right out of my eyes and onto his retard face when I utter those horribly embarrassing words. "Your credit card was declined." People always have the same reaction. "Well, did you swipe it again? Or maybe type in the numbers, because the strip is bad? I'm sure that card is good." Trust me, we always try it again because we don't want to deal with it any more than you do. I would way rather it just be approved than have to go back to your bankrupt ass while you dig through your purse or wallet and try to find the "good" card. I usually try to tell them discreetly so as not to shame them in front of their friends, but I worked with this one guy at the Black Eyed Pea who loved it when a card was declined. One time, he went back to the man of no credit who was paying for his party of six or seven. He told him loudly and clearly "your card was declined." He said it plenty loud enough so that everyone else at the table was sure to hear it as well. It was just plain mean and nasty. God, I loved that freakin' guy. It's the little things that get me through my shift...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Why is it so freaking hard to find a decent towel to wipe down a table with? Is it that difficult to have towels around? Are towels so fucking valuable that they must be kept under lock and key and only given out when the previous towel is just a bunch of sad tired threads only held together by the omelet they most recently wiped up? At my last job, they were locked in the office because you just know that I wanted to steal a whole bag of them and sell them on the underground black market for dish rags. Or maybe put them on eBay. Yeah, that's where the real money is for dish rags. You always had to ask the manager to please go get you one. Stingy fuckers. Or sometimes, they just don't have any, so you keep using the same rag over and over again. Wipe a table? Sure. Wipe a seat? Sure. Wipe an ass? Well, all I have is this one towel, so..okay, sure.

And they always are supposed to be that sanit bucket thing which is totally gross. All it is is a bucket of hot water and bleach, but why the fuck does have to be hot water? It's not like it stays hot. Within half an hour you are sticking your hands into a bucket of room temperature bleach water that has food floating in it in order to wipe down a table with a towel that is thinner than a goddamn Kleenex. I never put the towel back into the sanit bucket. Fuck that. I don't need to get my hands all bleachy-smelling and dry just so some customer can have a clean table. I rinse the towel under the faucet and call that shit clean enough.

Or what about when you have the pleasure of working in a restaurant that has real linen napkins instead of paper ones. It's like an unlimited supply of towels. Grab a dinner napkin, wet it and clean that fucking cappuccino machine. Who cares that the coffee never comes out of the napkin? If they would've just had plenty of towels in the first place, it wouldn't even be an issue. Those dinner napkins get used to wipe down all kinds of crap. If someone spills a soda, you just throw a pile of napkins on it. Is the refrigerator dirty? Hey, wipe it down with a dinner napkin. And then just throw it into the bag to go to the laundry and it will soon be back nice, clean and pressed. It's ready to sit on the lap of a customer who uses it to gently wipe the sweet mouth of her one year old little girl. The same napkin that only two days ago helped serve as a dam to keep the overflowing toilet water from seeping into the break room.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

So you know, I actually pretty much like my job these days. Of course it does help that I only work two days a week so it makes it a lot easier to tolerate the overall employment thing. For the most part the clientele that come in are pretty respectful and nice. I said for the most part. A few nights ago the Queen of the Cunts graced us with her presence. She had a made a reservation for the show because she was dear personal friends with the performer. Like we give a shit. She had requested a booth when she made the reservation, but a request is not a guarantee. For the sake of anonymity, let us say that her name was Laverne Defazio. Well someone else had also made a reservation that night and her name was very similar, like Laverne Defazia. So guess who didn't her booth. Well, the host offered her another booth but that one wasn't good enough. All the other booths were full because other people got there when the doors opened like they are supposed to and not five minutes before the show starts. This is when she opened up the floodgates to her true cunt power. She unleashed a tidal wave of cuntiness and we were suddenly up to our knees in her bitch juice. (I just couldn't say cunt juice. Cunt juice is too disgusting even for me to type. Hee hee...cunt juice.) She started bitching and moaning and whining and basically getting on my nerves. She was finally sat at a table which was actually better than the booth because it has a direct sight line to the stage and no waiters pass in front of it a thousand times during the show. But it still wasn't good enough. She headed back to the host stand to start complaining again and this is when our dear mild-mannered host looked at her and said "get outta my face!" She stormed over to a bartender to try to complain to him too. Like what the fuck do you want us to do, lady? Build you another booth? Or maybe we can make you a balcony or a box seat? Or if you're such dear personal friends of the performer, just have them sing at your fucking apartment. She stomped back to her seat to wait for the show to start. Of course she was in my station now.

I went up to her table with my biggest phoniest smile and acted like I had no idea what had been happening and started kissing her ass to try and smooth her ego. I took the order for her and her four friends. She ordered her Campari and soda and the show started. Then she had another Campari and soda. She asked me to bring her the check early so about ten minutes before the show was over I gave it to her. I leaned over and put my hand on her forearm and whispered in her ear. "I just wanted to let you know that we comped three of your drinks in order to make up for the misunderstanding at the beginning of the evening." Her bony hand latched onto my wrist and she hissed back at me.

"I want you to know that your host was very rude to me. What he said to me hurt me. It hurt my feelings and it hurt me deeply. My heart is hurt and I am very offended by it. I made these reservations for an evening of happiness and now it's ruined. My heart is hurt!" Meanwhile, her friends are still watching the show like they don't give a rats ass about her heart or how badly it was hurting. I looked at her and said, "okay."

She got up and went back to the bartender to complain again. By this time the host was gone because his shift was over. We told her that he was asked to leave and he may be fired. (Not true. At all.) She was reiterating what had happened as if we had forgotten it in the last 45 minutes. By this time, the Campari was doing all the talking. And the show was still happening. You know, the show? The show with her dear friends singing that she wanted to see so badly? It's happening as she is in the bar having a mini stroke. The bartender tells her to go sit down and enjoy the end of the show and she finally does. What a pain in the ass. And the tip? She gave me $30 which was way more than 20%. I think it was because out of all that commotion, I was the only one who didn't care enough to get involved, but from her point of view I was the nice one. Apathy wins again!

Monday, December 14, 2009

While I was writing about the disgusting habits of the lemon, it brought to mind another item that is found in every restaurant that also has its fair share of nastiness to it. Ketchup. Or Catsup. However the fuck you decide to spell it, the shit is nasty. Don't misunderstand me. As a rule, ketchup is not a nasty condiment. The bottle in my fridge right now is perfectly fine and dandy. However, it is not the same bottle that has been there for two years and I just keep refilling it over and over again, each time scraping off the black crud that has accumulated on the rim and lid. We save that behavior for restaurant ketchups. The last place I worked that had ketchup used the same bottles and we just refilled them every weekend. So if the bottle was half empty (or half full for you eternal cock-eyed optimist fucks) we just filled it up. What that means is, the ketchup at the bottom of the bottle just stays there for months and months at a time. It's really gross. And you know that it's time to throw it away when tiny bubbles start forming on the inside of the bottle. When you see that happening, run for the hills because the shit is about to blow. Or you can just put that bottle on the shelf and save it for the next time some real cunt asks for ketchup and you can give her that one and hope that the tomato time bomb goes off right in her cunty face. Fingers crossed. I've seen it happen. The pressure builds up and as soon as you unscrew the lid, it sends ketchup all over the place. It makes a big mess and it's a pain in the ass to clean it up, but if it gets all over a customer it's so totally worth it. You gotta take the good with the bad.

When I go to a restaurant, the first thing I do is look at the ketchup bottle. If the inside of the lid is caked with old dead ketchup, I order something that will not require me to said condiment. I would way rather have a ketchup packet than a bottle anytime. At least with a packet, you know you are the only one who has used it. The bottles that sit on the table all the time are the worst. How many times have you seen some dick who can't get the ketchup to flow? What does he do? He sticks a knife in the bottle to get the ketchup. And what if that knife is the same one he just used for mustard or to slice his sandwich or to scratch his ass with? And then that same bottle of nasty ass-scratched ketchup is there for you to use.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

I was at work the other day about to put a lemon wedge onto the glass of someones Diet Coke when I accidentally dropped it and watched the lemon fall to the floor. I sighed and bent down to pick it up to throw it in the trash because it would certainly be unsanitary to give a guest a lemon wedge that had fallen on the floor. I tossed the lemon into the garbage but then I thought about something. It's not like that lemon was even clean to begin with. No one in a restaurant ever washes the fruit. They just don't. When I am at home, I scrub the hell out of it because that piece of fruit has been all over the fucking place; in the hands of some migrant worker and then tossed into a bucket and then onto a truck and then into a shipping facility and then onto another truck and then into a grocery store. And you know some of the time it rolls around on the ground. Do you think that shit ever gets washed? Hell no. It's as dirty as the bottom of a shoe of a man who just peed at a public urinal. But in the restaurant world, we look at that lemon and think, "Meh, clean enough. Slice that bitch up and put it in a drink."

Am I the only one who believes that the bar fruit in a restaurant is one of the nastiest things on the planets? It's right up there with that bowl of peanuts that sits on the bar at your favorite dive that everyone eats out of. Germy, nasty, bacteria-ridden, skanky shit. Bon appetite!

Monday, December 7, 2009

The Bitchy Waiter blog turns one year old today. There have been 109 posts and almost 20,000 visitors. That is a post every 3.34 days which is pretty good when you consider how incredibly lazy and unmotivated I am. I have worked in two different restaurants, catered in many places and bitched about it the whole time. I just wanted to say thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting. And thank you to all the people who took photos that I have so totally stolen for this website. Well, a couple of the photos are mine. And the big pancake painting is actually mine too. So no bitching today. If I could have one thing, it would be to have all the servers of the world gather around me and present me with a stale piece of cake with a dirty candle in it. And then I would want then to all sing a birthday song to me all off key and uncaring and then as soon as they are done, I want them to run away from my table and go to the side stand and say what a douche I am for having waiters sing to me on my birthday.

One year ago today I wrote my first post. I weep with pride. You can click here to see where it all started. Once a bitch, always a bitch.

And what else do I want? I want you to share this blog with your fellow bitchy friends. Just click a link. Is that hard? It's not like I am asking for separate checks or anything.

There must have been a 50% off coupon for my club mailed to all AARP members this week because my whole station smelled like old people yesterday. You know the smell? A little bit of moth ball and Lysol with a hint of poo? Woman at table 13 last night. I give her my usual routine about the two-beverage minimum and how it would be best if she could just tell me both drinks at the beginning so I don't have to crawl over everybody and yell into her hearing aid to ask what she wants in the middle of the show. She seemed confused by me asking what she wanted for her second drink even though she hadn't had her first one. I felt bad. I know how confusing things can be for older people. Remote controls, computers, garage door openers...the world can be a scary place, old lady. She ordered a tonic water. So I asked her if she wanted that for her second drink as well. And then she asked me something that no one has ever asked me before while I was waiting on them. She looked up at me with sad sorrowful eyes and cocked her head to the right a bit. And then she asked me. She said, "Is tonic water a laxative?" Uh, what? What the fuck is the old lady asking me? I didn't know if she wanted it to be a laxative because she needed to make a Grandma Poopy Pie or if she was scared it was a laxative because she had already had her daily recommended allowance of laxative and one more bit of laxative would make a big embarrassing scene. I told her quite honestly that I didn't know. In my head I was thinking "oh if this lady takes a fucking dump here, I will cut an old bitch." She decided that just to be on the safe side she would have a bottled water for her second drink. Just to be on the safe side? It sounds to me like Grandma McGrunty needed to skip the show tonight and make a date with her dear friend Mr. Toilet.

The show went on without incident. She flagged me down for the check before the show was over because she was in a hurry. It doesn't take much thought to figure out what she was in a hurry to do. She bolted out as soon as the show was done. I warily approached her seat scared of what I might find when I looked down at it. Thankfully, it was clean and dry. I hadn't been that concerned about the dryness of a seat since two weeks ago when this lady was squirming all over chair as she was watching a Peter Allen tribute show. The guy singing was Australian and I just wanted to remind her that this guy wasn't really Peter Allen. He's dead. Didn't matter to her though. She was hopping and jumping all over that seat and I was just glad that any possible wettness stayed in her panties.

I have since done some exhaustive research (I googled it) and found no link to tonic water being a laxative. So rest assured, people. Feel free to drink those gin and tonics without any fear of softened stools or unsightly bowel movements. You're welcome.

Friday, December 4, 2009

So I was watching television today and saw about two minutes of The Real Housewives of Wherever the Fuck. Honestly, I was just switching channels and this scene caught my eye. I don't normally waste my precious time watching such mediocre crap on television. I use my boob tube time for important shit like So You think You Can Dance, The Biggest Loser, America's Next Top Model, Top Chef, Survivor and 60 Minutes. Okay one of those is not true, but I will let you guess which one of those things is not like the others. Anyhoo, one of the women was ordering at a cocktail at a restaurant. Not sure of her name or which one she was, but she was blond and had really big fake-looking tits. Does that narrow it down at all? When she ordered, I hated her immediately. I actually grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down what she said:

I'm gonna do a Cadillac margarita but I like it with Sterling Silver with a little bit of Grand Mariner and two fresh limes squeezed in it with soda water and only salt on part of the rim.

Is she for fucking real? Then she bragged about how she likes to order food in a certain way because she is so particular. She calls it particular, while I call it cunt-like. The waitress had a big ol' smile plastered to her face but you know it was only there because she had this fucking reality show camera all up in her ass. I bet as soon as she got to the side stand, she found the skankiest glass she could find to give to the bartender. And then she probably said to the bartender, "this lady is a fucking cunt." And then I bet the bartender took the two fresh lime wedges that she wanted and he dropped them onto the floor before he dropped them into her glass and then when he salted the rim (partially) he used dishwater to adhere the salt and the Grand Mariner was probably just cheap ass triple sec. Because that is what she deserved. Honestly if you need something that specific, make it at home.

I don't know why it bothered me so much, but it did. I could feel the pain of the waitress and I wanted to reach into my screen and pat her on the shoulder and tell her that everything was going to be okay. And then I wanted to cunt punch that "real" housewife because she needs that to happen to her for once. And it would have made great reality television.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Does anyone have to deal with "on-call shifts" at their job? If you are a nurse working the ER or a doctor, sure. Then it's important to have that on-call person in case a busload of kids is in an accident and the hospital is overrun with need. But an on-call waiter just pisses my shit off. I had one job once where they always had an on-call person and that was only one of the many things that made it a craptastic place to work. I won't say the name of it but let's just hypothetically say it was Josie's at Amsterdam and 74th. I was dreading the day that it would be my turn to be on-call. You have to keep that whole day free just in case they might need you. And the only time they needed you was when some other bitch waiter called in sick and the only reason that bitch waiter would call in sick was because he knew there was an on-call loser that would have to come in for him. It was a vicious vicious cycle and I really resented it. So anyhoo, the day came. I saw on the schedule that I was on-call for 4:00 and I would have to call at 3:00 to see if I had to come to work. Well, it took me 45 minutes to get to work so I basically was going to have to be ready to leave as soon as I got off the phone. I had already scheduled a catering gig for that night because it was sure thing and I didn't want to pass it by. Well, those bitches called me at 2:00 and said, "Bad news, Bitchy Waiter. We need you to come in at 4:00." I said, "Yeah, about that. I need to come in and talk to you, Mr. Manager." So on the way to my sure thing catering gig, I popped into the hypothetical Josie's at 4:00. I had my uniform, my apron, my check presenter and my bad attitude in a paper sack. I saw one of the managers and asked if I could talk to her in private. She was the cool one. She looked at me. She looked at the bag in my hand. And she said, "You're quitting aren't you?"

I did quit. I gave them no notice whatsoever and said my fond farewell to the place that I had given some of the best three weeks of my life. The manager that was working that night was a total prick. And all the waitresses at that place were total bitches who were mean and spiteful and I was so completely happy to walk through the dining room and know that they were going to be screwed all night because I was quitting. Fuck you, hypothetical Josie's at Amsterdam and 74th. Your on-call shifts can eat my pud.

Also, you may have noticed that I have made it even easier for people to share Bitchy Waiter postings with this handy dandy link below. You can click it to share it on your Facebook, Myspace or whatever else needs more Bitchy Waiter in its life. Spread the word, peeps. The world needs Bitchy Waiter.